Inspirational Leadership: The Barry Wehmiller Story

All companies talk about leadership, but few can show what it does to the people on the floor. Do you know how inspirational leadership connects to innovative leadership, and what that connection means for an organization? Good leaders who initiate structure and show consideration are usually successful. Leaders who inspire, who treat the business as a force for the well-being of the people inside it, can take an organization somewhere structure alone never reaches.

The clearest proof of that idea is a real company. This is the Barry Wehmiller story, the account of a chief executive who built a billion-dollar manufacturer by measuring success in the way the business touches the lives of its people. It is a practical look at what inspirational leadership is, how it changed safety and engagement at Barry-Wehmiller, and what it asks of every leader who reads it.

What Is Inspirational Leadership?

Inspirational leadership is a style of leading in which the leader creates meaning, purpose, and genuine care for people, and lets results follow from that environment rather than chasing the results directly. It treats employees as whole people with gifts to contribute, not as costs to be managed. Where transactional management asks how to get more output from a workforce, inspirational leadership asks how the organization can enrich the lives of the people who give it their work.

This is closely related to organizational leadership, but it carries a sharper moral center. The inspirational leader accepts that the company shapes how people feel about their work and their worth, and treats that influence as a responsibility. The payoff is not soft. Engaged, trusted people solve problems, improve processes, and stay, and the financial results compound over time.

The Barry Wehmiller Story

For a moment, picture a chief executive who has led an organization to 20 consecutive years of 20 percent compound growth in revenue and share value. Do you see a ruthless cost-cutter slashing budgets and jobs, moving operations overseas, and over-burdening stressed-out employees? Now imagine the opposite, and you have Mr. Robert Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller.

With revenues over $1 billion, Barry-Wehmiller is an industry leader and one of the largest packaging and automation companies in North America. Across two decades of significant growth, Mr. Chapman focused on the challenge of creating and sustaining an environment that brings out the best in people. Barry-Wehmiller articulates this goal as “Achieving Principled Results on Purpose.”

Mr. Chapman’s experience led him to a philosophy he calls inspirational leadership. Businesses, he explains, can have a positive and meaningful impact on society through how they engage and enrich their team members. He made “We measure success by the way we touch the lives of people” the guiding principle of the company, where leadership means authentically creating meaningful roles so that each associate can use their gifts and talents.

Applying Inspirational Leadership

The unparalleled success of Barry-Wehmiller demonstrates that Mr. Chapman’s sincere interest in people is a winning approach, not a trade-off against performance. One of the most striking examples is how the company reduced its worker compensation costs, not by tightening rules, but by changing what safety meant to everyone involved. That story shows an innovative approach at work.

How Caring Leadership Transformed Workplace Safety

A few years ago, worker compensation costs at Barry-Wehmiller were soaring, as they are at many organizations. At first the company did the usual things, addressing the issue by communicating lost time due to accidents and rising insurance costs. These approaches did not provide significant results, and they did not align with Mr. Chapman’s philosophy. A more thoughtful approach was needed.

A 20-member cross-functional team was formed to address the issue in a way that reflected the company’s leadership principles. The team responded with a question: if we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people, then is not safety really about the desire for every team member to arrive home safely each day? Regulators frame safety in similar human terms, and OSHA’s guidance on safety and health programs stresses leadership commitment and worker participation as the foundation of a safe workplace.

Vision, Mission, and Messaging

So this became the vision, the mission, and the message. Not reducing insurance costs, but sending every person home safely at the end of each day. The passion, commitment, and sincerity with which the cross-functional team and the company’s leadership carried this message to Barry-Wehmiller team members was transformational.

Instead of safety being a cost concern, it became a company value. While cost was not the focus, the result was striking. Paid claims were reduced by 80 percent, and workers compensation insurance premiums fell from $363 per Barry-Wehmiller team member in 2003 to $73 in 2006. When people believe their employer genuinely wants them home safe, they protect one another, and the numbers follow.

Inspiring Employees Through a Lean Enterprise Journey

An innovative approach can have a positive impact on employees, on the organization, and even on society. Barry-Wehmiller extended that idea into a Lean Enterprise Journey, which equips team members with lean process improvement tools and techniques so they can see the unique contribution they make to the business. Cross-functional teams then refine processes to support a more efficient and practical approach to the work.

Once again the focus is not on reducing costs. The real goal is to create a more enjoyable and satisfying work environment for everyone. This aligns with Mr. Chapman’s philosophy of inspirational leadership, and with what he has learned about his team members over the years. As he puts it, “At Barry-Wehmiller, we have paid people for their hands for years, and they would have given us their heads and hearts for free, if we had just asked them.”

A Challenge to Leaders

Mr. Chapman once delivered the keynote address at an event honoring the top privately held businesses in the St. Louis area. Instead of presenting performance results, he asked these business leaders a different set of questions. What do you hope to achieve while you are on the face of the earth? What are you going to do to make a difference? How is your leadership role in business allowing you to do that?

Then he gave them a challenge:

“Our problem in America is not our people. It’s the lack of inspiration. It’s the lack of people feeling fulfilled by what they’re doing. We’ve gotten too disconnected from the way we touch the lives of people. Our promise at Barry-Wehmiller is that if we’ve got 4,100 employees and they each have an average of four people in their families, we’ve got more than 16,000 people directly impacted by our leadership. It is an awesome responsibility. How are you sending people home? Can they be there for their spouses, not just physically but emotionally? For their kids? For their community? American business has a profound opportunity to have a sustained positive impact upon our society.”

That challenge lands harder today, not softer. Decades of survey data tell the same story Mr. Chapman told that night. Gallup’s research on workplace engagement reports that most employees worldwide are not engaged at work, a gap that drains productivity and well-being alike. The lack he named is measurable, and so is the opportunity, as Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace makes plain. Successful leaders initiate structure and show consideration, but the way they use those traits is the difference between meeting standards and setting new ones.

How Does Your Leadership Style Affect Your Organization?

The story of Mr. Chapman and Barry-Wehmiller is the story of what leadership can mean to an organization, its members, and all of its stakeholders. The company did not choose between caring for people and producing results. It produced results by caring for people, and it documented the proof in safety claims, retention, and two decades of compound growth. That is the practical heart of inspirational leadership, and it is available to any leader willing to lead that way. For more on the Barry-Wehmiller model, you can visit Barry-Wehmiller.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Inspirational Leadership?

Inspirational leadership is a way of leading that creates meaning, purpose, and genuine care for people, then lets strong results follow from that environment. It treats employees as whole people with gifts to contribute rather than as costs to manage.

Who Is Robert Chapman of Barry-Wehmiller?

Robert Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a billion-dollar packaging and automation company. He is widely known for the inspirational leadership philosophy captured in the principle “We measure success by the way we touch the lives of people.”

How Did Inspirational Leadership Improve Safety at Barry-Wehmiller?

A cross-functional team reframed safety around the goal of sending every person home safely each day rather than reducing insurance costs. Paid claims fell by 80 percent, and worker compensation premiums dropped from $363 per team member in 2003 to $73 in 2006.

What Is a Lean Enterprise Journey?

A Lean Enterprise Journey equips team members with lean tools and techniques so they can see and improve the contribution they make to the business. At Barry-Wehmiller the aim was a more enjoyable and satisfying work environment, with efficiency as a result rather than the sole goal.

Why Does Inspirational Leadership Matter for Business Results?

Engaged, trusted people solve problems, improve processes, and stay with the organization. Barry-Wehmiller pairs its people-first philosophy with 20 consecutive years of 20 percent compound growth, showing that caring leadership and financial performance reinforce each other.